`May success await on the steps of my master’s daughter, for she has given me back my life. Tell me what I can do for you, princess, and I will do it.’
`I want to go to the emperor who is our over-lord, and I have no one to advise me. Which of all the white-headed boyards shall I choose as counsellor?’
`If you have me, you need no one else: I will serve you as I served your father, if you will only listen to what I say.’
`I will listen to everything. Can you start in three days?’
`This moment, if you like,’ said the horse.
The preparations of the emperor’s youngest daughter were much fewer and simpler than those of her sisters. They only consisted of some boy’s clothes, a small quantity of linen and food, and a little money in case of necessity. Then she bade farewell to her father, and rode away.
A day’s journey from the palace, she reached the copper bridge, but before they came in sight of it, the horse, who was a magician, had warned her of the means her father would take to prove her courage.
Still in spite of his warning she trembled all over when a huge wolf, as thin as if he had fasted for a month, with claws like saws, and mouth as wide as an oven, bounded howling towards her. For a moment her heart failed her, but the next, touching the horse lightly with her spur, she drew her sword from its sheath, ready to separate the wolf’s head from its body at a single blow.
The beast saw the sword, and shrank back, which
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was the best thing it could do, as now the girl’s blood was up, and the light of battle in her eyes. Then without looking round, she rode across the bridge.
The emperor, proud of this first victory, took a short cut, and waited for her at the end of another day’s journey, close to a river, over which he threw a bridge of silver. And this time he took the shape of a lion.
But the horse guessed this new danger and told the princess how to escape it. But it is one thing to receive advice when we feel safe and comfortable, and quite another to be able to carry it out when some awful peril is threatening us. And if the wolf had made the girl quake with terror, it seemed like a lamb beside this dreadful lion.
At the sound of his roar the very trees quivered and his claws were so large that every one of them looked like a cutlass.
The breath of the princess came and went, and her feet rattled in the stirrups. Suddenly the remembrance flashed across her of the wolf whom she had put to flight, and waving her sword, she rushed so violently on the lion that he had barely time to spring on one side, so as to avoid the blow. Then, like a flash, she crossed this bridge also.
Now during her whole life, the princess had been so carefully brought up, that she had never left the gardens of the palace, so that the sight of the hills and valleys and tinkling streams, and the song of the larks and blackbirds, made her almost beside herself with wonder and delight. She longed to get down and bathe her face in the clear pools, and pick the brilliant flowers, but the horse said `No,’ and quickened his pace, neither turning to the right or the left.
`Warriors,’ he told her, `only rest when they have won the victory. You have still another battle to fight, and it is the hardest of all.’
This time it was neither a wolf nor a lion that was
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waiting for her at the end of the third day’s journey, but a dragon with twelve heads, and a golden bridge behind it.
The princess rode up without seeing anything to frighten her, when a sudden puff of smoke and flame from beneath her feet, caused her to look down, and there was the horrible creature twisted and writhing, its twelve heads reared up as if to seize her between them.
The bridle fell from her hand: and the sword which she had just grasped slid back into its sheath, but the horse bade her fear nothing, and with a mighty effort she sat upright and spurred straight on the dragon.
The fight lasted an hour and the dragon pressed her hard. But in the end, by a well-directed side blow, she cut off one of the heads, and with a roar that seemed to rend the heavens in two, the dragon fell back on the ground, and rose as a man before her.
Although the horse had informed the princess the dragon was really her own father, the girl had hardly believed him, and stared in amazement at the transformation. But he flung his arms round her and pressed her to his heart saying, `Now I see that you are as brave as the bravest, and as wise as the wisest. You have chosen the right horse, for without his help you would have returned with a bent head and downcast eyes. You have filled me with the hope that you may carry out the task you have undertaken, but be careful to forget none of my counsels, and above all to listen to those of your horse.’
When he had done speaking, the princess knelt down to receive his blessing, and they went their different ways.
The princess rode on and on, till at last she came to the mountains which hold up the roof of the world. There she met two Genii who had been fighting fiercely for two years, without one having got the least advantage
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over the other. Seeing what they took to be a young man seeking adventures, one of the combatants called out?’ Fet-Fruners! deliver me from my enemy, and I will give you the horn that can be heard the distance of a three days’ journey;’ while the other cried, `Fet-Fruners! help me to conquer this pagan thief, and you shall have my horse, Sunlight.’
Before answering, the princess consulted her own horse as to which offer she should accept, and he advised her to side with the genius who was master of Sunlight, his own younger brother, and still more active than himself.
So the girl at once attacked the other genius, and soon clove his skull; then the one who was left victor begged her to come back with him to his house and he would hand her over Sunlight, as he had promised.
The mother of the genius was rejoiced to see her son return safe and sound, and prepared her best room for the princess, who, after so much fatigue, needed rest badly. But the girl declared that she must first make her horse comfortable in his stable; but this was really only an excuse, as she wanted to ask his advice on several matters.
But the old woman had suspected from the very first that the boy who had come to the rescue of her son was a girl in disguise, and told the genius that she was exactly the wife he needed. The genius scoffed, and inquired what female hand could ever wield a sabre like that; but, in spite of his sneers, his mother persisted, and as a proof of what she said, laid at night on each of their pillows a handful of magic flowers, that fade at the touch of man, but remain eternally fresh in the fingers of a woman.
It was very clever of her, but unluckily the horse had warned the princess what to expect, and when the house was silent, she stole very softly to the genius’s room, and exchanged his faded flowers for those she held. Then she crept back to her own bed and fell fast asleep.
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At break of day, the old woman ran to see her son, and found, as she knew she would, a bunch of dead flowers in his hand. She next passed on to the bedside of the princess, who still lay asleep grasping the withered flowers. But she did not believe any the more that her guest was a man, and so she told her son. So they put their heads together and laid another trap for her.
After breakfast the genius gave his arm to his guest, and asked her to come with him into the garden. For some time they walked about looking at the flowers, the genius all the while pressing her to pick any she fancied. But the princess, suspecting a trap, inquired roughly why they were wasting the precious hours in the garden, when, as men, they should be in the stables looking after their horses. Then the genius told his mother that she was quite wrong, and his deliverer was certainly a man. But the old woman was not convinced for all that.